What’s Your Drinking Handprint?

We believe that businesses are an essential part of shaping a more sustainable future, and that we can help speed this along by supporting businesses that are leading the way.

So we get pretty excited when businesses like Brewgooder come along – they’ve created a simple yet awesome way of doing good: drink beer, give water. We love this type of thinking because it shows that making a difference isn’t all about reducing your personal negative impact – your ‘footprint’ – it is also about increasing your positive impact – your ‘handprint’.

If you’ve never heard of ‘handprints’ before check out the concept here – we think it’s brilliant. It recognises that we’ll never achieve a sustainable future by cutting down negative impacts alone: positive change doesn’t just hold the potential for making a much bigger difference, it’s a crucial part of the mix. So when you find ways of increasing your handprint that you really enjoy (say drinking delicious beer, for example…), you know you’ve nailed it.

That’s why we chose to buy some Clean Water Lager for all our lovely participants to celebrate their completion of MAD Seat, and why we want to grow our handprint by showing our support to Brewgooder and sharing our reasons for drinking their great beer.

Zoë Cuthbert – Brewgooder Chief Evangelist (Brand, Events & Engagement) – has kindly agreed to walk us through the Brewgooder story and why they do what they do:

Brewgooder was launched last year in Edinburgh by Alan Mahon and Josh Littlejohn, two entrepreneurs committed to making a difference. Their mission is to provide 1,000,000 people with clean drinking water through the power of craft beer. The ‘Clean Water Lager’ is brewed by BrewDog who have world class credentials for environmental impact, reusing wastewater and organic material from across Aberdeenshire.

Since our launch via crowdfund, Brewgooder has managed to provide 5,000 people in Malawi with clean drinking water just from people drinking our beer. Analysis from craft beer trends has revealed that millennials are 87% more likely to purchase a product with social or environmental benefit. By choosing to drink our beer, drinkers are literally transforming the lives of other people!

Our MAD Clyde challenge focused on water usage, where participants were reminded of how easily water is wasted in the UK – just one minute of running the tap uses 6 litres of water, the same amount they had to carry for all those miles… But all their efforts raised a whopping 506 pledges to change habits on Do Nation – a pretty impressive handprint!

Great things can come from incorporating positive habits into everyday life, so raise a can and ‘Drink Beer, Give Water’!